Shiloh

I took the last week off from work in order to begin stacking logs now that the foundation is complete. We had a telescoping forklift delivered on Friday morning (Feb. the 5th) and finished up preparations Friday and Saturday morning. The foundation contractor finished up final soil preparation Saturday morning and then away we went!

I climbed on the forklift Saturday afternoon around 2:00 pm and began moving the first log into place:

Driving a forklift is an interesting experience to say the least. While the controls are not overly complicated it is a decidedly big beast.  Not only do you have to watch the four sides of the lift, there is the ability to have the lift out 35 feet in the air – either to the front or up in the air.  Minor issues like the power line that is 20 feet overhead have to be taken into consideration. However, the four-wheel turning ability allows you to get in and out of unbelievably tight spots.

We began with what are called the sill logs. These are the four logs that are supported by the foundation. They are tied into the foundation with rebar and are the largest logs in the house except the ridge pole and cap logs. The following picture shows our very first log in place:

It typically takes the most time to put these logs in place. In our case it wasn’t until Monday afternoon that we got the first log in place.  It actually only took a day of work as we couldn’t stack any logs Saturday until the afternoon so the concrete can cure and no work was done on Sunday. By the end of the day on Wednesday we finished all four sill logs. Here are the sill logs and the happy crew:

Once this was done the pace picked up as we learned more about the process. By Sunday afternoon we had three complete courses stacked:

We use some pretty hardcore tools in the building process. Here is my dad working with the Milwaukee Hole Hawg:

And my favorite, the Bosch demolition hammer. We use it to drive the rebar into the logs. It weights about 35 pounds and is essentially a mini-jackhammer. It was bad enough on the first three levels. It’s going to be lots of fun on the 20th course:

Even though it is both heavy and unwieldy it sure beats putting tin the rebar with a sledgehammer!

The rain and mud has continued to plague us. We lost about a day and a half of work due to rain.

Using the forklift only exacerbates the problem. We are going to need some serious landscape work when we get done!

By the time we got the last full day of work (Saturday) we were able to stack four logs – a full course. I am hoping we can improve to be able to to stack 1.5 – 2 courses of logs in a full day of work. Time will tell. Just not having all this rain would be a great help!

In total I had 10 days off from work. While I wanted to get more done, considering the circumstances it went as well as we could expect. I really appreciate all the help we have been getting from our family and friends.  While it would be possible to do this alone (as I know others have), working with others makes it so much more easy and enjoyable. It’s hard enough as it is, I can’t imagine doing it without help.

A special thanks to my brother-in-law Ian who took most of the pictures on this post!

There is nothing more important than your foundation. The right foundation makes building the house much easier. Our contractor did an excellent job and my next post will talk about how we set the first log on the foundation. In measuring to put the log in place it turns out that our rebar was placed in the same location on each pier block within 1/8th of an inch over a stretch of five pier blocks (one wall) and 32 feet. What a great job!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the 26th and 27th our foundation contractor began by setting up batter boards and put up line to mark off the foundation area. A bobcat was used to dig the holes for the form.

The forms we built were then placed and leveled

Here is what it looked like after:

The building inspector stopped by and inspected the forms on Friday, the 29th. We passed inspection with flying colors!!

Friday the 29th it began raining in the afternoon and rained all night. My contractor wasn’t concerned about it, but it turned the work area into a mud wrestling area.

Last Saturday the concrete was poured. The biggest issue was the 5″ deep ruts the concrete trucks left in the driveway:

Last Tuesday they removed the forms with the Bobcat and a lot of grunt work and “rubbed” the sides of the pier blocks to smooth them out.

Finally, today they finished up by leveling the dirt and tamping it flat.

My youngest child is only two. Even so, he has been fascinated with the building process. While we were peeling logs he would take a garden trowel and try and peel his own. For Christmas, one of his uncles gave him a toy chainsaw, toolbelt and hardhat. Having seen my dad and I working with chainsaws he knew what it was. As soon as he left the travel trailer with the new chainsaw he made a beeline for the racks of logs. The chainsaw has an on/off switch and a plastic chain that actually runs over the bar just like a real chainsaw. On goes the switch, he hits the trigger button and  pretends he is cutting the log. This is with hard hat and goggles on..looking just like a little lumberjack.

Last weekend we cut down what I hope is the last tree we have to chop down.  We had wanted to have it in the back yard, but after we cleared the house site closer inspection showed that it had some limbs that were cracked. Being that close to the house I was afraid of limbs dropping on the house and such.

The tree was a 70 year old red oak. When felled we measured the diameter of the stump:

It was 28 inches across one way and 27 inches across the opposite way. Approximately 40 feet up the trunk of the tree I measured a diameter of approximately 16 inches.

I can’t stand the thought of cutting the trunk up for firewood so I am going to have it milled as red oak makes very nice wood for woodworking. I plan on building the door and window bucks for the next house out of it along with an entertainment center, a kitchen table, a new computer desk for my equipment and some bookcases. The rest  I will save for future projects. And there should be a lot of lumber left over..I am estimating there is 800 board feet of wood in that tree.

Twenty minutes after the tree is down we look over and my little lumberjack is hard at work:

I hope he never grows out of it. Only time will tell, but I think it would be great if he continued to want to help me build houses as he grows up.

This week will hopefully mark another milestone in the home building project. Earlier today I called the company we selected to dig our foundation and asked if they could begin work later this week. It looks like they might begin Friday or Saturday.

If this happens we will only be three weeks behind for this part of the project

Around the same time we finished peeling the logs Rachel and I decided to make some changes in the house plans. The major change was that we decided to extend the length of the walls from 26′ to 31′. It will increase the heated and cooled living area from something like 1200 sq. ft to just over 1700 sq. ft. Unfortunately it required an update of the interior and structural drawings.

Even so, the interior drawings are now complete and the structural plans will be done in the next day or so. Once these are done the building permit can be updated with the changes.

To make things simpler and allow us to as much of the work as possible we are using what are called “pier blocks”. These are essentially pyramidal constructs with flat tops. We are using a total of 17 pier blocks. They will be arranged around the edge of the structure to hold the logs with more inside the square to support the flooring and what are called ridge pole support logs and the girder support log. As with the interior and structural drawing updates, the increase in size of the house has meant that we have to increase the size of some of the pier blocks so some additional work was necessary.

The contractor and crew will come out with a bobcat and an excavator and dig the seventeen holes for the form. These holes must be accurately place and once the forms are placed they must be absolutely level and at the same height above grade (ground) as the other forms. In our case the top of each form will be 18 inches above grade. The bottom of the form will be 18 inches below grade for a total height of 3′ for the form. Once the form is in place and level the hole will be backfilled so that the form don’t “float up” when the concrete is poured. Even though the forms are heavy, it is possible for the concrete to push the form up or even blow the sides of the form out if the seams are not reinforced enough. This will create a huge problem in either case. We reinforced our forms with two by fours and brackets to keep this from happening.

We began building our forms quite some time ago. Along the way we managed to make some mistakes and learn a thing or two. When we finish nailing the last one together this week it will get us one step closer to living in our home!

Cutting a form:

The day we were cutting the majority of the forms it was only slightly above freezing for much of the day.

We also laid out the area where the foundation is going to be located. While it might not look like much in the picture below, the square marked out by the string is the exact area of the house down to the inch.  In fact, the front door be within a foot or two of the end of small pine log you can see “pointing” towards the foundation area. The kitchen will be to the right of the front door and the great room will be what you enter first.

A log home weighs a great deal. A single dry log is going to weigh something like 1,000 pounds.  It is important to have a solid, firm foundation or later we will have difficulties. While it has been a challenge to build the proper forms and it will be some hard work to place them correctly, in the end it will worth it knowing we won’t have issues with the foundation of the house.

Preparing your logs so that they are ready to be stacked is probably the single-most labor intensive part of the log home building process. If you are alone it can take hundreds of hours of work for a typical house. This is definitely one area where it helps to have (very good!) friends.

The initial part of the process is getting the logs arranged in a single “layer” so that you can work on each log individually. Ideally this is done by your logger when he or she drops off the logs. In our case we didn’t have enough room for the log trucks, the crane and the logs all arranged nicely so they had to be stacked into six stacks that were about five or six logs high. Pulling apart those stacks was not easy and I detailed it in this previous post.

You should start peeling as soon as possible as it will almost always be easier to remove the bark when it has been fresh cut. I have joked that you should start peeling as the tree is falling in the woods. In our case due to poor planning we didn’t begin peeling for two weeks and it was consequently much more difficult.

There are many methods of peeling logs. Most commercial log home builders use giant lathes to debark and shape the logs into uniform sizes. While some people like it, to me they come out looking like giant dowels. I don’t know if you have ever walked in the woods and looked up at trees, but they aren’t uniform. Some tend to curve, some are straight(er). On all trees the butt end is going to be larger in diameter than the top. While you certainly strive to get the best looking wood, having a little crook in the log makes it look natural. Homes built the way ours is built have what is called the “rustic” look.

Some home builders who are striving for the rustic look will use what are called drawknives to peel the bark. We use what are called spuds. Spuds, in this context, are not potatoes! Spuds can come with a variety of head shapes and a variety of handle lengths. We have four different types of spuds with handles ranges in length from two to four and a half feet. The handles are made from a hardwood (typically hickory or ash). The heads of spud tend to be flat, or almost flat, but I have one that has a curve to it with a 6″ radius. The edge of the head will be sharpen and is intended to slide between the bark and inner wood, separating the bark off the log in strips. I find that if it is too sharp the spud will want to cut into the wood and if it is too dull it will be harder to work with and slower to peel.

When Rachel and I first started peeling it was taking both of working for four hours on the same log. After some practice, experimentation with the tools and toughening of muscles, one of use can now peel a log in about an hour and a half to two hours.

Nothing like a nice bunch of debarked logs:

Rolling a log:

The following pictures shows a tool we use to move/roll the logs. It is called a cant hook:

With a cant hook, and a little determination, most people can roll a log on their own. Our largest logs are the six 45 foot logs that are between 15 and 21 inches at the butt end of the log and I can roll them by myself if necessary. Even so, it is very helpful to have a partner on the other end helping out!

At this point we hope to finish up next weekend with the peeling. Out of 100 logs we currently have about 70 peeled.

Next comes the foundation!!!

Probably one of the biggest challenges we will face in this project is that we don’t have a truly effective method of moving our logs around. Each log is between 35 and 45 feet long and is between 14 and 20+ inches in diameter at the base of the log. While I can’t exactly drop one a scale, there are websites that allow you to estimate the weight of various lengths/species of timber. Our logs are between about 2500 and 3000 pounds each. While I could drag one with a truck over fairly even ground, that is about it. As our stacks of logs are very close together, there simply isn’t room for a truck to maneuver in the close quarters.

When the logs were dropped onto our property the loggers used a crane attached to the back of a flatbed to unload them from the log trucks, but there was only room to stack them in piles four to six logs high. In order to treat them for insects and fungus the logs have to be spread out in a single layer with enough room between the logs to rotate them for treating both sides of the logs (and later peeling). The logs are laid on what we call “sacrificial logs”. They are called this because they are laying on the dirt and will very likely have to destroyed because of decay and bugs when the other logs are removed.

I tried to use a winch to move them around initially. In retrospect, this was actually pretty laughable. My great neighbor Wayne helped with his Jeep mounted winch and we were able to pull the logs down off one stack in a few hours, but it wasn’t going to work for the majority of the logs. While I appreciated his help (a lot!!), I needed another solution. We also needed a solution fast as we discovered shortly after this attempt that the logs were attracting local members of the insect population. I haven’t looked up yet what it is, but here is a picture showing one of the beetles along with some of its eggs. Sorry, it’s not a good picture, but I don’t have a macro lens.

I couldn’t spray the logs with a pesticide/fungicide until the logs were arranged so that each could be rotated for a treatment of both sides of the log. The damage done by the beetles is not as bad as it looks. The beetle bores into what is called  the cambium layer of the log and not what you would consider the actual wood. Once you peel the cambium off as part of the debarking process it removes the majority of the damage. A little sanding will remove anything else.

The following shows Rachel and Jenna working on a log. OK, Rachel is working on the log.

The only effective option, other than renting a telescoping forklift, was to hire a tractor for a few hours of work. I called around and Chris, who lives about 2.5 miles from our property, agreed to help me a couple of weeks ago. I thought it would take about four – eight hours of work. After looking at the logs, he thought about ten hours of work would be required and wanted to do it for a fixed rate. We agreed on an hourly rate and if it took ten hours it would amount to his quoted amount. Guess who was closer? It wasn’t me. He was off by 30 minutes. It took 10.5 hours over a Saturday and Sunday. I hauled the 20+ pounds of chain around and hooked it up to the log first and then the bucket scoop on the front of the tractor while he operated the tractor. There were three 45′ logs that we had to use a car jack to raise them enough to slide the log onto the sacrificial log. Chris had a 40 horsepower New Holland tractor and it did the overall job like a champ, but just wasn’t quite up to the task of lifting the ends of the largest logs. Suppose I need to buy a 50 horsepower tractor when it comes time . . .

Here you can see Chris pulling a log up into place onto the sacrificial log.

And in the following picture you can see a row of logs arranged and ready for pesticide treatment and peeling along with a stack behind them that had not been pulled apart yet.

Once all the logs were arranged so we could work with them, the  peeling could begin in earnest. I will save that for the next post.

Everyone needs a mailbox. Especially when you live about 13 miles from the nearest post office. So, we asked a dear friend of ours to use some of her artistic talent to paint a little scene on our mailbox. Recently she finished it and this weekend I made a trip to Lowes to pick up some supplies including a cedar mailbox post. A little more expensive than I wanted, but it will last practically forever and we intend on keeping this mailbox until it rusts into a pile of dust.

Saturday afternoon Rachel and I  carefully checked the county regulations on mailboxes and dug the hole and dropped the post in place. We attached a small piece of wood to the “arm” of the post and then nailed the mailbox onto the anchor wood. So here is the mailbox. Later we are going to hang a piece of wood below the mailbox with stenciled or woodburned numbers on both sides. That way, down the road, when we move we can take the mailbox and change the numbers easily. Check out the donkey in the back – it is our neighbor’s donkey who brays every morning, afternoon and evening. I believe it’s his or her feeding time. He (or she) also brays whenever I manage to make to make enough noise to disturb him. Which happens frequently. What can I say – I’m a noisy cuss.

Thanks June . . you’re the best!

The other night I was working late shoveling dirt. Seems to be an occupation of mine lately. Just after the sun set I slightly startled to hear a limb from a pine tree come crashing down. I looked up to see what I initially thought was large hawk taking off from the top of the pine tree to wing it over to another tree that was about 100 feet away. He (or she) landed in that tree. It was then that I was able to see it clearly enough to realize that it was what appeared to be a great horned owl. At about 18 – 24 inches in height he was probably full grown or close to it. He sat on the new tree for about five minutes even after I continue to shovel dirt. Apparently I was not worthy of his interest. After a short rest, he flew off in search of prey.

So far we have seen rabbits, squirrel, hawk and one deer (and numerous tracks). I suspect that as we begin living on the property we will see even more wildlife. After we scraped the house site there have been deer tracks all over the dirt. I have seen one set of tracks that were probably the biggest deer tracks I have ever seen in Florida.

This is one of the reasons we moved out to the forest. Being near a creek and across the street from a wildlife management area attracts the wildlife. Now if we can just keep Duke from running them all off. . .